


Building Friendships

by LadyWinterlight



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene, Series Spoilers, additional to canon, pre-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 12:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4960921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyWinterlight/pseuds/LadyWinterlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a shift in relationships between the end of season 2 and the start of season 3. Here's my little headcanon about how that happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Building Friendships

This is the image that originally inspired this fic

* * *

 

Skye sighed softly. She sat alone in the cafeteria trying to eat her dinner. May still hadn’t come back from vacation. Fitz was off trying to find another lead on the Monolith. Bobbi was in the labs, working on analysis while recovering from her injuries. And Coulson was trying to keep everything running smoothly.

She was lonely; that really was all there was to it. She had fought against the Inhumans because it was the right thing to do, but Lincoln still hadn’t really forgiven her, or SHIELD. But the friends, the family that she had within SHIELD was scattered and broken.

At least SHIELD gave her a way to help people. It’s why she stayed.

She managed to finish her food and took her dishes back up to the counter. Maybe she could work on updating the news-scanning programs until bedtime. Better to be sitting alone in her office than alone in the lounge. Or, at least less obviously depressing.

“Hey, Daisy!” Skye’s attention was caught by Hunter’s call down the hallway. She turned to him with a small smile; some things hadn’t changed much and Hunter was one of them. He and Bobbi still went through phases, but overall his attitude hadn’t changed much in the last several months.

“Hey, Hunter. What’s up?” she asked, pausing in her walk towards her office.

“You look like you could use some company,” he answered after studying her for a moment. “Come watch movies with Mack and I for a while, yeah?”

Skye’s expression tightened slightly when he mentioned Mack. They hadn’t been on the best of terms since San Juan, though at the moment that was better than several of her other team relationships. “Yeah, okay. If you’re sure Mack won’t mind?”

Hunter grinned. “He might, but I think we can convince him otherwise.” He slung a friendly arm around her shoulders and steered her towards the lounge the team always used to congregate in. “Besides, you’ve been spending far too much time alone lately.”

“I know,” she whispered hesitantly. “It’s just… so much has changed…”

“And we let it. I know, love,” Hunter soothed her gently. “Let’s just enjoy a film or two. Have a drink, relax, and don’t think about it for one night.”

Skye nodded and followed Hunter into the lounge. Mack looked up with a smile to greet Hunter, but his expression froze for a moment when Skye appeared as well. “Hey, Hunter,” he managed to greet the ex-merc. “Daisy,” he added with a polite nod. Skye found it ironic that these two had no trouble adapting to her name change, though Coulson still struggled with it.

“Hey mate. Thought we could use a little extra company,” Hunter answered cheerfully. “And Daisy spends too much time alone.”

Meeting Mack’s eyes, Skye shrugged helplessly and smiled a little when he nodded again. “Grab a drink, then. Popcorn’s about done,” Mack said after a moment.

“Thanks,” Skye answered softly as she headed to the fridge. She grabbed a cider and settled on the couch beside Hunter. Mack sat in the armchair nearby and they sat back to watch an old favorite, Monty Python. It was one of the few things the old team had unanimously agreed upon.

* * *

 

And so it began. Two or three times a week, Hunter would haul her off for movies or board games. Sometimes Bobbi would join them. Once in a while they’d see Coulson. A couple of times they even managed to pin Fitz down for a Sherlock marathon. But Skye would consistently spend part of her free time with Hunter, Mack or both.

Time alone with Mack was uncomfortable at first. He was still struggling with having been possessed by a Kree-something, though he knew it wasn’t her fault. She’d been kidnapped by HYDRA when he was sent into the tunnels, so what happened to him really had nothing to do with her. Even if she hadn’t gone down there to get powers Coulson would’ve still been investigating the place. But it was the beginning of everything changing, and she’d been changed the most, so was sort of a bad association by default.

And if she was being entirely honest, Skye hadn’t fully forgiven the team for making her feel unwanted over something that she couldn’t help. AC, May and Fitz had all stood by her to the best of their ability. But the others had been afraid of her, and she couldn’t help but wonder if they still were.

“You’re distracted tonight,” Mack commented one evening a few weeks later. The trio were playing Suburbia, which Skye was usually quite good at. But her head wasn’t in it at the moment, and she was well behind on the points board.

“I know.” She sighed softly. “Maybe I should’ve just let you guys play.”

“Nah, not as much fun with just two,” Hunter disagreed. “What’s on your mind?”

“Same stuff as always,” she answered with a wry smile. “Am I really accomplishing anything here? Should I have left with the rest of the Inhumans? Not that I had a life outside of SHIELD to go back to like most of them did. But at least then I wouldn’t have people looking at me like they don’t quite know what to do with me.”

Mack and Hunter shared a glance, and Skye picked up on their unease. “Look, I didn’t mean to bring down the evening. I’ll just go.” She pushed her chair back and stood up.

Surprisingly, it was Mack that stopped her. “No, don’t go. We should talk about this.” He sat back in his chair, looking up at her calmly. “Not talking about problems is part of what caused so much trouble.”

Hunter snickered. “Yeah, mate. And not all on one side, either.”

So they talked out their issues. Mack told them about how Real SHIELD had started, how he and Bobbi had come to Coulson’s team already having doubts about him and how he would run things. How it had all come to a head when Coulson began to issue arbitrary orders about the Kree City, and then about HYDRA after San Juan. And yes, what he’d done had worked - but by that point, they’d already been convinced that Real SHIELD, with its collective method of decision-making, was the better way.

Hunter had some issues with Mack that needed airing, too, about his kidnapping and Real SHIELD’s attempt to hold him prisoner until after they’d dealt with Coulson. God knew that he hadn’t been much of a joiner before then, but he’d signed on with Coulson long term to try to make things right again.

Skye spoke about feeling as if she’d lost everyone’s trust over something that she couldn’t control. And how on top of her grief over losing Trip, who had been one of her closest friends - almost a brother - on the team, they had pushed her close to the edge. So that finding out she still had both parents living who wanted her with them had made it so tempting  to leave SHIELD behind her. And finally she talked about her grief that her attempts to build a bridge between them had fallen through so disastrously.

“You made the right call in the end, Daisy,” Hunter offered in a soothing tone.

“Did I?” she asked, her tone filled with grief and her eyes bright with tears that she wouldn’t allow to fall. “My mother didn’t think so. In the end, she… she tried to kill me. Because I was in her way…” Both Mack and Hunter stared at her in shock. That particular detail hadn’t come up in debriefing. Skye took a deep breath, forcing her grief back under the surface. “I didn’t tell anyone except Coulson. But my dad - Cal - killed her to save my life. Even though it broke his heart.”

“Then he also made the right choice when it counted, Daisy,” Mack said in a low voice.

“And we’re all glad he did,” Hunter added.

Skye shook her head and shrugged. “The best I could do for him in thanks was to give him a new life. He’ll never remember the family he had and lost. But at least he’s happy.”

“What about you?” Hunter asked. “Don’t you deserve to be happy?”

“I think I would’ve been, if things here hadn’t gone so pear-shaped,” she admitted quietly. “But with Simmons missing, Fitz driving himself crazy and May on an extended vacation… it’s like the family I fought for went away with my parents.” Neither man responded, just looked at her sympathetically for a long moment. Skye shook her head, chuckling a little. “It’s alright. I’ll bounce back. I always do.”

“I’m sure you will,” Hunter agreed. “But while you may be missing the others, don’t forget that you’re not alone, yeah?”

“He’s right,” Mack agreed. “We may not be a family. But we are a team.”

“And that’s a good start,” Skye agreed softly. “Thanks.”

* * *

Daisy was having a rough day when she let herself into the lounge, looking for a snack to hold her over until dinnertime. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Grabbing a peach, she quickly downed it and picked up a bottle of water as she headed over to the couch. The TV was on, and someone was playing a game.

She hesitated when she realized that ‘someone’ was Mack. But she stood beside the couch, arms crossed stubbornly, and just watched for a while. She was going to get over this stupid idea that Mack didn’t like her.

Mack glanced up at her briefly and gave her a hint of a smile but didn’t stop until he’d finished his level. “Join me?” he invited.

“I’ve never played this one.” He just gave her a look and held out the second controller in silent challenge. She just looked at him for a moment, then shook her head and took it. “Fine. But you have to show me how to play.”

“We’ll start in team mode,” he said, resetting the game as she sat on the couch beside him. “You and me against the computer. Here, run through the tutorial quick.”

Two hours later, Hunter found them still in the lounge. Mack had a big grin on his face and Daisy looked eagerly intent on the game. “Well, what’s this, then?” Hunter asked cheerfully as he settled himself in an armchair.

 

A moment after he settled in to watch, a major explosion took over the screen. Mack whooped in excitement and Daisy jumped to her feet and did a little victory dance as the “Achievement Unlocked” banner lit up the screen for a moment. “Yeah, girl!” Mack grinned, holding his hand up for a high five. “That’s the first time anyone has ever pulled that off in our game.”

“Awesome!” Daisy high fived Mack and then flopped back down onto the couch.

“Nice work, Tremors,” Mack said as the menu came up to select the next level. “You want to keep going?”

Daisy paused for a moment at the nickname, then smiled and nodded. His voice had the same lightly affectionate tone as it did when he called Fitz, “Turbo” and that was okay with her. “Yeah. Let’s keep playing.” She glanced over at Hunter. “Unless you mind?”

“Nah, I’m happy to watch you two mastermind another Achievement,” Hunter responded in a teasing tone. Daisy just grinned at him and settled in to play another level.

* * *

“I need you two to work together as a team for a while,” Coulson said to Mack and Daisy.

“Why?” Mack asked; normally his position as head minder of alien artifacts didn’t send him into the field, and he preferred it that way.

“We’re perilously short on field personnel. Bobbi’s still recovering, May’s still away, and Hunter’s kind of a loose cannon at the moment,” Coulson explained. “We’ve traced the last two incidents of people with new powers to a fish oil supplement, and it looks like the problem is because of that crate of terrigen crystals that wound up in the ocean after falling off the Iliad. I’d much rather we get to these new Inhumans before anyone else can try to take advantage of them.”

Mack nodded thoughtfully, and Daisy smiled a little bit. “Do you think we’re getting closer to a way to detect the transformations?” she asked curiously.

Coulson shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. There’s a lot of people out there, and I have no idea how far the contamination has spread. But I know we need a quick response team, and you two are my best option.”

“Alright,” Mack agreed. “I don’t know that I really want to be a field agent long term, but I’m not going to leave Daisy to handle this stuff on her own.”

“Good. Thank you,” Coulson replied with a smile. “I’d suggest that you might want to do some practice drills, maybe work out together when you can. We could get another call at any time, and I’d like you to be ready.”

“Yes, sir,” Daisy agreed. She just hoped they’d have time to adjust to working together more directly before the next upheaval.

If only she knew...

* * *

 

Somehow in S3 we get to this... and I'm happy to see it!

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to lead right into season 3. At the end of S2, Mack and Daisy (Skye) are not particularly close. And in S3E02, we see Mack being there for her almost as much as Coulson was. This is my take on why.
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr too! ladywinterlight.tumblr.com :)


End file.
